The little girl -- brown wavy hair, big green eyes, wide smile – dashes across the garden to pluck a flower from a bush.
She spins around, spots her grandmother and giggles as she's playfully scolded in Bosnian.
This is the Green Thumb Garden, a 1 1/2-acre spot where the cultures that comprise San Jose's rich diversity cross paths.
Each morning, when the air is still cool, the gardeners converge on their plots of crops, many of which reflect their cultures.
In one corner, a Mexican gardener grows towering cornstalks. An old Bosnian man stoops over and slowly separates a mass of tomato plants with his bare hands. "I shouldn't have planted them so closely," he says.
Nearby, a young white man jabs the dirt with his shovel, tossing soil to either side. An old Russian couple hobbles along, tending to their rows of cabbage.
Behind a trellis of climbing green beans, an African-American man tends to his brother's garden. "He's sick today," he says, carefully labeling the strawberries and the carrots.
An Iranian man grows Swiss chard. Beside him, an old Chinese couple cultivates leafy bundles of bok choy that they readily give to appreciative members of this tight-knit group.
In this garden – located beside an inexpensive apartment complex in West San Jose – the myriad of ethnicities collide, yet coincide.
Some gardeners are old, some are young, some come every day, while others come only once a week.
Seeds are shared and laughter is heard, despite barriers – ages, backgrounds, languages – that would divide most.
They come together a few times a year to share vegetables they prepare at a brick barbecue in the garden.
At their annual celebration, everyone offers something for a salad that becomes a cornucopia of cultures.
To these people, this garden offers more than a sentimental space, it offers an entire world.